Monday, February 10, 2014

The Irish Catholic Church’s child-protection watchdog has welcomed this
week’s UN Committee on the Rights of the Child report on the Vatican’s
handling of clerical child sexual abuse.

In particular, the Maynooth-based National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland
(NBSCCCI) welcomed the recommendations on eliminating corporal
punishment where children are concerned, and it calls for an internal
church inquiry into the religious who ran the Magdalene laundries and to
pay compensation to the women in them.Observations

Last
night the board said that “as an organisation we are pleased that a
significant number of observations and recommendations [in the UN
report] relating to child abuse in the Catholic Church are already in
place due to the work of the NBSCCCI and the church.

“To
cite a few examples; clear procedures are now in place for reporting to
the civil authorities and children’s rights awareness training has been
taking place.

“We believe that we have come a
long way in recognising the rights of children to protection, but we are
acutely conscious that there is no room for complacency.”

It welcomed the UN recommendation that the Vatican
“establish a mechanism at a high level with the mandate and capacity to
co-ordinate the implementation of children’s rights across all
pontifical councils, episcopal conferences” as well as all “that
functions under the authority of the Holy See”.

“This mechanism should be provided with adequate human, financial and technical resources to fulfil its mandate.”

It
welcomed a recommendation that the Vatican “strengthen its efforts” to
make the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child widely known.

It
also welcomed the UN reminder to the Vatican that the right of children
“to freely express their views constitutes one of the most essential
components of children’s dignity”.

The board
welcomed the UN recommendation that the church conduct an internal
inquiry into the four religious congregations which ran the Magdalene
laundries and ensure those responsible for offences “be sanctioned and
reported to national judicial authorities for prosecution purposes”.

It supported the UN recommendation that full compensation be paid to Magdalene women and their families.

It
endorsed the UN reminder to the Vatican that “all forms of violence
against children, however light, are unacceptable” and that it ought
“explicitly oppose all corporal punishment in child-rearing” in canon
law and in all Catholic institutions.

The board
supported the UN call on the Vatican to “immediately remove all known
and suspected child abusers”, and that these be referred to the
“relevant law-enforcement authorities”.

It backed
the UN call for changes in canon law to allow child abuse to be
considered a crime and for the removal of the obligation of silence
therein on victims and others aware of such crimes.

It supported the UN call for “transparent sharing “ of all Vatican archives on abusers and those who hid their crimes.

Findings

It
backed the UN call for the new Vatican commission on abuse, set up by
Pope Francis, to investigate all child sexual abuse cases, how church
authorities dealt with those cases, and that findings be made public.

The
board also supported the UN call for the Vatican to “provide
compensation to victims of sexual abuse committed by individuals and
institutions under the Holy See’s authority without imposing any
obligation of confidentiality on the victims and establish a
compensation scheme for victims”.